Report Comment to a ModeratorOur Moderators review all comments for abusive and offensive language, and ensure comments are from Verified Users only.Please report a comment only if you feel it requires our urgent attention.I understand, report it.Cancel

GC: WOW Factor

It's odd to learn that Blizzard Entertainment might be wary
of taking on a new challenge. After all, the decision to
create a Warcraft MMORPG, despite the huge amounts of time,
money and risk involved, worked out rather well.

So well, in fact, that the game is now played by more than 6
million players worldwide - and counting. What's more,
they're all forking out at least $12.99 a month for the
privilege, which means Blizzard probably isn't having too
much trouble paying the bills. Namely the bills for their
champagne fountains, personal helicopters and office chairs
made out of melted-down fabergĂ eggs. Possibly.

But as all good businesses know, you can never have too much
money. So, what with the next-gen battle truly kicking off at
the end of this year, it seems logical that Blizzard might
turn its attention to consoles next. Surely there's a huge
section of the gaming audience crying out for a console
version of World of Warcraft - and since they'll be willing
to pay for the privilege, surely Blizzard will oblige?

Not neccessarily, according to chief operating officer Paul
Sams. He's kindly agreed to sit down for a chat at the
Leipzig Games Convention, and to address the issue of
bringing WOW to consoles - an idea which Blizzard is
considering but, by the sounds of it, is some way from being
committed to.

"We've met with Microsoft, we've met with Sony, and we are
exploring these things, but the list of challenges is long,"
Sams says.

"One really big challenge is that one of the key features of
a massively multiplayer game, especially WOW, is consistent
and regular content updates. They require hard drive space,
and there's a finite amount of that on each of those
platforms."

Then there are the strict certification processes put in
place by the platform holders. At Blizzard, Sams explains,
they build content updates on PC, give them a thorough going
over on a test server, and then release them. "There's no
certification process outside of Blizzard's internal process.
When you introduce Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo, you introduce
a whole new certification process."

Which can be a bit of a bloody nightmare, presumably... "It
can be. What if we have something that needs to be dealt
promptly, a bug that's causing crashes? On PC, we make it, we
test it, we deploy it. On console, we could be waiting for
days, because you've got to submit and test it. And if they
don't like something, we've got to go back to the drawing
board."

And it seems Blizzard doesn't like going back to the drawing
board - well, not because someone else has told them to,
anyway. They remain fiercely autonomous in creative terms
from parent company Vivendi, maintaining full control over
all decisions that affect their products and the way they're
marketed (though Sams talks at great length about what a
supportive force Vivendi is). Moving WOW to consoles, Sams
says, might mean making compromises - and that doesn't sound
like Blizzard's style.

"We have an architecture that we've already established, and
it's very set. [The platform holders'] architecture is also
very set. How well do those match? What kind of compromises
do we have to make, and what kind of compromises do they have
to make? The list is not short, to be candid."

Even if Blizzard decided to start work on a console version
of WOW tomorrow, Sams continues, we'd have a good while to
wait. "It isn't as simple as flipping a switch... It would
require a couple of years of development, realistically, to
make it playable on those platforms."

So is it worth all the effort? "Potentially, certainly... The
issue of certification testing is only one of the many
challenges, however. So we have to ask ourselves if there are
enough new customers there to justify all of the other issues
we'd need to overcome."

But WOW aside, that doesn't mean Blizzard isn't looking into
console development at all. "What is more possible is to
build something from the ground up... But whether or not it
will happen, I'm not sure."

However, Sams is sure about which of the next-gen consoles he
personally prefers. "I think the 360 is the best box," he
says, but adds that he's also keen to see what the PS3 and
Wii can do, and will "absolutely" end up owning all three
machines.

In terms of online gaming, though, Sams reckons there's a
clear winner. "On console, I think that Live will reign...
[Microsoft] has a much longer track record and history of
multiplayer gaming, and I think they absolutely will have the
lead.

"It's going to be excruciatingly difficult for anyone -
including Sony - to take that away from Microsoft. They're
way too far ahead."

Observe, though, that Sams began the above statement with "on
console". For the majority of online gamers, he believes, the
PC is still the platform of choice.

"When you look at Battle.net and you look at the subscriber
base we have with World of Warcraft, even Xbox Live is not
even close to us... I think we absolutely are winning. And
you can count on us bringing MMORGs as well as more games
that would be playable over Battle.net."

All in all, it sounds like - for the time being, at least -
Blizzard has its attentions firmly focused on PC gaming. And
why not? After all, the number of WOW subscribers is already
huge ("We're over 6.5 million and just shy of seven
million"), and still growing.

"For example," says Sams, "If you look at Europe as a
territory, that territory has sold more units in August than
it did in December." A videogame that's been around for 18
months, and is still selling better in summer than it did at
Christmas? Now there's a rare thing.

And sales are set to get another boost with the release of
the first WOW expansion pack, The Burning Crusade. It's not
quite ready yet, but Sams says they're "fast approaching the
beta test period". As for the finished product - "We're still
quoting winter, very confidently... Once we hit beta, you'll
know it's coming quite soon."

As previously announced, TBC will feature a host of new
content, including two new races along with new zones,
dungeons and battlegrounds. According to Sams, it's more than
a third of the size of the original game - "Somewhere between
a third and a half, yeah."

So will all this extra content mean the game costs Blizzard
more to run? "What costs us more to run it is people," he
says - as the number of subscribers ramps up, so must the
technology.

"We need more firepower on the server side, so we're
upgrading the entire global network and we'll be adding new
data-centres as well. When you add more players, you also
have to increase the number of game-masters and staffers to
support all of those players, as well as you have to increase
the bandwidth in sizable costs."

But it won't be down to WOW fans to pick up the bill - "We'll
be keeping the subscription fee flat," Sams confirms. Though,
of course, players will have to pay a one-time fee for the
expansion pack itself. Blizzard is considering a releasing a
bundle pack which includes the original game, and perhaps a
collector's edition - but nothing's been confirmed so far.

Even with the arrival of The Burning Crusade, though, can
Blizzard really sustain such a rapid rise in subscriber
numbers? It's a question that Sams answers cautiously.

"Will we have the same number of subscribers in two years? I
don't know. I certainly hope so, but being realistic, that's
a tall order."

Sams believes the key to keeping subscribers, and attracting
new ones, is to continuously offer new content. "So, starting
with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on
bringing out a new expansion set every 12 months."

He's also aware that Blizzard could do more to support
markets outside North America, where the WOW fanbase is
growing all the time. "We're trying to figure out how we can
improve, and how we can service each of the regional
markets."

And that includes Europe, of course, which Sams describes as
"A majorly important market". As a result, Blizzard is hard
at work "exploring how we can better service the community in
Europe".

Does that mean Blizzcon, the two-day event celebrating all
things Blizzard which is held in Anaheim each year, could
make it to Europe? "I would say we're certainly exploring
that," Sams hints.

What with the forthcoming release of The Burning Crusade, the
planned technological overhaul, and the challenges that come
with managing a huge online community, it seems that Blizzard
has plenty on its plate at the moment. Perhaps too much to
start worrying about console gaming. That might come as a
disappointment to those who were looking forward to playing a
Blizzard MMO on their shiny new machine, but for at nearly 7
million other people, it's not the end of the world...